The Von Pufferhutte Family Singers! (the musical)

I saw three more fringe shows ths week.

Thursday night, I saw The Von Pufferhutte Family Singers! (the musical). I'd really liked this group's shows the past two years (I Like Nuts! and Captain Squishy's Yee Haw Jamboree!), so was looking forward to a very silly musical. I did get that, but I was somewhat disappointed in the show overall. The plot involves a family singing group who believe the Von Trapp family stole "Edelweiss" from them and come to America to become famous and get revenge. The family all gang up on one daughter (Goldfnger Von Pufferhutte) who keeps being referred to as ugly and stupid (and who non-family members address as "little boy", all despite her being a perfectly attractive young woman) and part of the plot has her running away and kidnapping Liesl Von Trapp. By the way, several of the other characters have equally silly names - Mom is Cookie Monster Von Pufferhutte, the other daughter is Octopussy, and one son is Ronald Reagan. Father is Helmut and the other son has the normal name of Klaus, but he carries around a pickled dead baby, named Heinz, in a jar of formaldehyde. (That name is one of the subtler jokes in the show, which mostly hits you over the head with its humor.)

The show worked best in its musical numbers - starting from the opening "I'd Rather Be Dead Than Not Be Famous" and continuing through "The Von Trapps are Hideous Demons Out of Hell", The most appalling song is "You Can't Un-eat a Baby" and the best is the Mexican number "Quiero te que mueros (I Wish You Were Dead)", sung after they adopt honorary son Pablo Neruda to take Goldfinger's place. Unfortunately, the material between the songs often dragged. It was still a reasonably entertaining show, but not up my expectations.

As for the performances, the most notable was Jesse Terrill's as Pablo. That may be because he is one of the few performers with serious acting credits. (He played Mortimer in The Fantasticks at Arena Stage this season, for example.) There weren't any notably terrible performances. I just would have liked there to be a bit more there there.

Love Noir

The first of two fringe shows I saw on Friday night was Love Noir: The Music of Lenny, Kurt & Harold. That would be Lenny Bernstein, Kurt Weill and Harold Arlen, of course, and very much my sort of music. The show was a straight cabaret performance by Lonny Smith and Maris Wicker, accompanied by Barbara Schelstrate on piano. Most of the songs were very familiar, though there were some lesser known pieces. For example, I can't imagine anybody in the audience not knowing "Mack the Knife" but "Tango Ballad" (also from The Three Penny Opera) is not performed as frequently. And that was a piece that I thought was done particularly well, with a lot of expression. I was also particularly pleased with the two songs they did from One Touch of Venus - "That's Him" and "I'm a Stranger Here Myself."

They didn't treat the other composers quite as well, in my opinion. Arlen's "Over the Rainbow" was mixed oddly with Bernstein's "Neverland". And I did not care much for the arrangement of Arlen's "Dissertation on the State of Bliss" (which should be familiar to more people from Tom Wopat's recording). Neither of the two songs from West Side Story - "Something's Coming" or "Cool" - sounded quite jazzy enough for me. On the other hand, I thought Maris Wicker's performance of "Ya Got Me" (from On the Town with Comden & Green providing lyrics for Bernstein's music) was excellent and the percussion accompaniment that Lonny Smith provided for that number was amusing.

Even with a few weaker numbers, all in all, my only real complaint about the show was that it was a bit too short. I could have used a little more banter between songs to get things up to a full hour.

Engaged

The final show I saw at the fringe festival was the Victorian Light Opera Company's production of W. S. Gilbert's Engaged. This was the most successful of Gilbert's non-musical plays in its time, but it's not very well known these days. Which is a pity as the show was really quite engaging.

The plot involves a young man, Cheviot Hill, who has this unfortunate tendency to propose marriage to every woman he meets, each of whom he describes in flowery language as "the tree upon which the fruit of my heart is growing." He is rich (but stingy) and there is additional money that goes to his friend, Belvawney, so long as he is unmarried but which will transfer to his uncle, Mr. Symperson, if he marries or dies. Belvawney, due to his strange eyes, has an odd influence over Cheviot Hill and has managed to keep him from getting married - so far. Symperson, of course, wants the young man to marry - and has a daughter, Minnie.

The first act takes place on the border of England and Scotland, where Angus MacAlister makes an honest living from a bit of poaching and causing rail accidents which lead the victims to stay at the cottage of his fiancee, Maggie MacFarlane and her mother. Among the victims of the latest rail accident are Cheviot Hill, Mr. Symperson, Belvawney, and Belinda Treherne, who loves Belvawney but won't marry him so long as his income seems so unstable. She is also supposed to be marrying Major McGillicuddy and Belvawney is trying to use a peculiarity of Scottish law to marry her as protection against him. Unfortunately, it's Cheviot who protects her by declaring that she is his wife and she agrees. That legal peculiarity? A mutual declaration in front of witnesses is enough to constitute a Scotch marriage. As if that isn't complicated enough, Cheviot has already fallen for Maggie (and paid off Angus, accordingly).

The rest of the play takes place three months later in London on MInnie and Cheviot's wedding day. Minnie's friend - who turns out to be Belinda - shows up and declares her sorrow at having entered into a Scotch marriage, but not knowing who her husband is. To make things worse, the Scots characters show up, having been engaged as servants. Belvawney explains that the biggest complication is that the cottage was on the border of England and Scotland, so Cheviot and Belinda might or might not be married. So he might be married or might be engaged to two women. Belvawney and Mr. Symperson try to manipulate things to their financial advantage, of course.

This being Gilbert you know that everybody will end up married in the end - though you're never sure to whom. Fortunately, it doesn't much matter.

I'll note that the VLOC did trim the script to make the show run 90 minutes (versus the 2 hours and 15 of the unabridged version), but there weren't any noticeable gaps. All in all, this was a very enjoyable production.

As for the performances, David Dubov was a stand-out as Cheviot Hill. He was so earnest and flowery that it didn't even matter when he flubbed his lines a few times.